


The Spring Equinox

by bluebeholder



Category: Dishonored (Video Games), Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Flower Language, M/M, Magic, Vernal Equinox, Whoops I Grew A Plot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 05:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14036889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: More than one lord among the fair folk has a mortal lover. It's Corvo's first time attending a revel like this, and of course he's there on the Equinox. It's going to be a wild night.





	The Spring Equinox

**Author's Note:**

> THE CROSSOVER THAT NOBODY ASKED FOR RETURNS!
> 
> Look. 
> 
> It's got a plot now.
> 
> Chapter two coming tomorrow. <3

Corvo isn’t entirely sure what kind of party Levi is dragging him to. He’s been told it’s outdoors, it will be wild, and there will be good company. “A celebration of springtime,” Levi had said, with an odd sparkle in his eyes. “Of summer’s long-awaited return.”

Well, Levi is always a little bit odd, and Emily’s right that Corvo is in too deep. So he dresses as Levi tells him, in comfortable and decent clothes, and meets him at the flower shop right on time. Corvo is more than a little curious, but he gets the sense Levi won’t be answering any questions.

“Good afternoon,” Levi says, smiling. He’s wearing odd clothes, a looser and more bohemian kind of style than usual, and Corvo wonders what exactly is going on. And he’s carrying a basket, in which appear to be _piles_ of flowers. “Ready?”

First Corvo would really like to know where they’re going.

Levi looks up from Corvo’s hands to his face and shrugs. “Into the woods,” he says, “because that’s where you generally tend to find fairies celebrating the beginning of the warm parts of the year.”

It takes a moment for Corvo to process that. Fairies?

“You didn’t think we were going to a normal party, did you?” Levi asks, positively smirking. He offers a hand. “Tonight’s a supernatural night, my dear Corvo. Now take my hand…or we’ll be more than fashionably late.”

Feeling that he might just regret this, Corvo takes Levi’s hand.

Between one blink and the next, they’re standing in the middle of a deep, dark wood.

What the fuck?

“Calm down,” Levi says, kissing Corvo on the cheek. “Just a quicker way to travel, when the revel we’re attending is across an ocean.”

Corvo stares at Levi. Where exactly are they?

Levi shrugs. “Between here and there, under hill and over it,” he says. “In a space within the within of the forest, where magic lurks. You…didn’t think I was an ordinary man, did you?”

No. That does make Corvo smile. No, he never thought Levi was ordinary. But this is a little much!

“A warning,” Levi says. “First…if you haven’t picked up on this yet, I’m not a human, Corvo, I’m like the folk you’re about to meet. Second, this revel is safe for you, but it will be _wild_. You will see things tonight that mortal eyes weren’t meant to see. No matter what, do not get lost. And do not forget me.”

He couldn’t forget. Corvo scoffs at that.

Levi takes a flower crown from the basket. Bell-shaped white flowers, blue violets, folded purple flowers, rosemary, wide oak leaves. He sets it on Corvo’s head. He whispers something under his breath and Corvo feels _vines_ tangling with his hair, holding the crown in place. “To keep you safe. White heather for protection, monkshood for a warning to those who’d do you harm, blue violets to remind them that I’m watching over you and to remind you of my faithfulness and love, rosemary for remembrance, and oak leaves for bravery. It’s the best I can do.”

And what about Levi’s, then? Corvo watches as he takes a thin crown of single hydrangea blossoms in purple and blue and sets it on his head.

“Blue blooms for coldness and apology,” Levi says. “I’m not attending because I like the host. But I understand him and he knows it, hence the purple hydrangea.”

Corvo watches as Levi’s eyes follow his hands. This is insane and Levi should know it. Perhaps it hasn’t sunk in yet, what’s happening, but Corvo does trust Levi. It’s possible that they’ve both lost their minds, but even so, here he is in this creepy forest. He’s going to stick with Levi through this, even if it’s actually madness.

“Thank you,” Levi says. His eyes look odd in the light, and his clothes don’t look the same anymore, not remotely like what they were outside the shop. And his teeth…are they pointed? “Take my hand, and follow me.”

Without hesitation, Corvo does as he is told. Levi leads him through the forest until they reach a place where there’s golden light shining through the trees, and the sounds of wild merry music, voices that make Corvo dizzy to hear. He holds tighter to his guide, who steps straight into the glade ahead.

And Corvo’s pretty sure he’s gone mad.

Beings with leaves and vines for hair dance with tiny imps with blue skin and mouse ears, while beings the size of acorns that glow like falling stars spin in the air. Revelers of every shape and size, men winged like butterflies and women with mantis eyes, some taller and slenderer than Corvo and others the size of his fingernail. They carry golden platters of food to and fro, and music from a hundred harps and pan-pipes and other stranger instruments fills the air in harmonious cacophony. The plants are growing wild and the air is as warm as a midsummer night.

And holding court over it all, enthroned on living trees that must have been grown for the purpose, a handsome man with an ageless face and green eyes Corvo could drown in, and a woman of surpassing beauty with golden hair. They see Levi approaching, and the man rises to his feet.

“Percival, a lord of summer,” Levi says in a low voice. “He rides on the crest of a summer storm, and is king of this wood. No Oberon, but he is one of the great lords…and by his side his paramour, a human woman appropriately named Queenie. From what I know of her, you’ll like her.”

Corvo shakes his head as they reach the foot of the throne. Levi lets go of Corvo’s hand and stares at the fairy lord with…when did his eyes turn black?

“Ill met, outsider,” Percival says coldly.

“The vernal equinox is upon us and your power waxes,” Levi says. “Is it wrong that I’ve come to pay tribute to you, as you deserve?”

Percival’s posture doesn’t relax. What kind of supernatural showdown is this? And why did Levi have to bring Corvo along? “Tribute? From _you_?”

Levi’s smile is sharp. “Blessings for you and your lady on an auspicious night,” he says. He removes a crown of yellow and white from the basket, woven of jasmine vines studded with yellow flowers, set with columbines, starbursts of white petals and smaller soft white lilies, and snapdragons in coral and gold. “For your lady, if you’ll permit.”

“Offered in good faith…” The fairy lord folds his arms, but doesn’t say anything else. He’s watching Corvo, now, but Corvo doesn’t particularly mind.

The lady—Queenie—takes the crown from Levi’s outstretched hands and sets it on her head. She looks regal, in diaphanous white, beautiful as if she were a fairy. In the crown she seems…more. One of Levi’s infinitely appropriate choices. “Thank you,” she says. “A gift in good faith is always welcome.”

“And for you,” Levi says, offering Percival the other. This one is white and gold, too, but darker: spiky white flowers, white crocuses, bell-shaped flowers in deep saffron, yellow lilies, and dark green leaves, in a royal arrangement. “As I said: in good faith.”

Percival accepts the crown with an expression of disdain. He’s even more attractive with it on, almost…magnetic. As if the world revolves around him. No: Corvo looks around and realizes that everything happening here is literally moving around him. The whole glade, everything, everyone…circling, even if it’s not immediately apparent.

“And will you stay to celebrate?” Percival asks.

“I planned on it,” Levi says. He gestures to Corvo. “As you have your mortal lover, so too do I. I bid you welcome my lover, Corvo.”

Percival’s smile is genuine as he offers a hand. “Well met,” he says. “There are worse places to meet than on a night of summer magic.”

Corvo nods, clasping hands for a moment, and then instinctively bowing to Queenie. She giggles, looking nervous. “Hi,” she says. He smiles back at her: she’s not that much older than Emily, all things considered. They’re in this together.

And they are _in_ it. Wine is pressed on both of them, and other drinks, things that make Corvo feel as if he’s no longer standing on solid ground. He remembers Levi whispering to him that Percival’s crown is at once acknowledgement of his new reign, celebration, and accusation of false friendship; that Queenie’s is meant for her beauty, her elegance and graciousness, and also pointing out that she is an absolutely inexplicable puzzle. He remembers dancing, pulled into a wild thing where his feet carry him without conscious thought, first with Levi and then with Queenie and even for a strange brief moment with Percival. It’s wild. Magic.

The world is a sea of green and gold. Corvo remembers a contest of strength with some troll, which he brought to a stalemate; he can still taste the spices of the food on his tongue when he awakes the next morning. Of someone singing, of flowers bursting into bloom, of stars falling among the crowd and shattering into light.

Of Levi ripping off their clothes, kissing and biting with too-sharp teeth, impossibly perfect in the wild moment. Of hearing Percival and Queenie mere yards away, seized by the same wild impulse, and not giving a damn. Of pressing Levi into the ferns beneath the trees and making love while the revel raged on around them.

There are a thousand memories, of bells and hunting horns, of singing stars and magic. Corvo feels as if he’s been dragged into a dream, a dream which will never let him wake up. He forgets where he came from, who he is, what he is. He forgets his own name. But he doesn’t forget Levi, never once the entire night.

He does forget exactly how the night ends, though.


End file.
